2. Contact Info

3. Dealer Selection

With spring finally arriving in Michigan, and with an ample 5600 break-in miles under our Denali’s belt, it finally was tested, and we learned some performance secrets: Simply flat-footing the accelerator in RWD prompts some wheelspin, and the automatic upshifts at 5500 rpm — curiously 100 shy of the power peak. Manually upshifting just ahead of 5500 (so the shift happens at 5700) shaves a noticeable tenth or two off the 0-60 and quarter-mile times. If you absolutely must get the jump on the uniformed Denali driver in the next lane, select Auto-AWD and do a brake-torque launch to shave another two-tenths, for 7.4 seconds to 60 mph, 15.7 at 88.0 mph in the quarter. That 60-mph dash is about a half-second slower than our last F-150 XLT SuperCrew 5.0-liter and Ram Sport Hemi (both with 4WD, weighing within 100 pounds of Big Jim). Opting for the 6.2-liter drops that to 6.0 seconds, but in 99 percent of daily driving in a beast this large, my accelerator foot never hits the floor, so I don’t pine for that thirstier engine one bit.

We’ve spent a few months settling in, augmenting our winter warrior with some ex-works essentials. To keep the vast floor area from becoming a salt lick, we installed a custom set of WeatherTech Laser Measured FloorLiners ($190) that fit so snugly they can’t move around, though only the driver mat uses retainer pins. And to preserve the paint in the bed, we opted for a fuzzy Bed Rug that will be kind to the painted things we’ll carry. The $430 price included professional installation, which was done in the dead of winter. We wonder if the metal had sufficiently warmed to the recommended 68 degrees, because some of the adhesive hook-and-loop fasteners have detached from the bed. We also had to trim the liner to expose the factory’s under-rail LED bed lighting. We like that the Bed Rug bridges the floor-to-tailgate gap, so mulch and loose materials don’t fall through, but we don’t love the fact that the tailgate won’t shut unless you clean out that area.

A quick, painless dealer visit took care of our tire-pressure monitoring fault and an exhaust-overheating recall. Trips to the far north and west coasts of the Mitten State have revealed this to be a superbly quiet, comfy cruiser, impervious to truck ruts, crosswinds, and tire-eating potholes. Fuel economy is also trending up, as we’re no longer tempted to pamper ourselves with lengthy remote-start warm-ups. We now look forward to towing and hauling various summer-fun gear.

2014 GMC News and Reviews

GM's latest full line of half-ton pickups came up a tad short against the competition in the comparison-test trench wars, but as fancy trucks go, the GMC Sierra Denali 1500 has been serving plutocratic construction bosses, horse breeders, and oil-field barons for three generations and still holds the high ground in that echelon. So when we set out to assess…

This winter has been a brutal one in Detroit. The snow hasn't piled up to the extent it has on the East Coast, but the temperatures have been well below average. No problem. Mainstream automakers test their vehicles extensively at temperature extremes as low as 30 or 40 degrees below zero, both outdoors in exotic arctic locations and indoors in…

I promised we'd put Big Jim to work towing, and for this update we have. MT's Detroit office recently acquired a sweet tailgate trailer, outfitted with TVs, keg taps, and the works, festooned in matching gloss black with corporate TEN logos. When hooking the trailer up, the rear camera certainly helps, but its low-ish resolution, its lack of a line…

We test hundreds of cars a year. Some are quite memorable, such as this year's Dodge Challenger Hellcat, which two of our editors picked as their favorite ride of the year. Let's take a look at the cars and trucks we liked in 2014.2015 Dodge Challenger SRT HellcatThe Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat has blown my mind. Officially. The monstrous 707-hp…

I've made peace with the fact that this is primarily a city and highway truck. Its bed has been used way more often for moving households (three and counting), shooting photos out of, and toting road-trip luggage (northern Michigan, Memphis, the Hot Rod Power Tour, etc.) than hauling dirt, mulch, or anything grimy (only one mulch run so far). So…